ARCH 0680 at the Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World at Brown

scenes of the Nile in Italy

Nile mosaic (Barberini mosaic) from the Sanctuary of Fortuna at Praeneste, Italy. Dated to the last quarter of the second century BCE.

After today’s lecture, I did a little digging on the Nile mosaics from Praeneste(modern Palestrina, Italy). The most famous, for both its size and its quality, is the Barberini mosaic, pictured here. It is so called because it was removed from the complex in the 17th century by the Barberini family (and has suffered subsequently!). It was located in a complex of structures behind the forum at Praeneste and below the terraces of the great Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia.

View of the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at Praeneste, Italy. The sanctuary dates to the second century BCE.

The mosaic was on the apse, the curved ceiling, at one end of a hall in this lower complex of the Sanctuary. The apse is described by Dunbabin as ‘grotto-like’ (1999: 49), and “in its original setting, water seeping through the rock would have covered the surface [of the mosaic], enhancing the effect of fluidity” (Dunbabin 1999: 50-51). How cool is that, that the very materiality of the mosaic’s presentation was self-referential?

The composition of the mosaic is not just a highlight of scenes from Egyptian life, but even reflects contemporary conventions of displaying the cardinal directions from a birds’-eye view, with south at the top as was the custom in ancient maps (Meyboom 1995: 43). While a varying number of interpretations of the mosaic have been set forth (and you can read about them in more detail in the sources I’ve provided, below), it is generally agreed that there are two distinct parts to the mosaic: the upper part depicting (surprise!) Upper Egypt and the Nile’s origins in the heartland of Africa, and the lower part various scenes of Lower Egypt and the Delta.

In the upper part a mountainous landscape is populated by Ethiopians hunting, and by a variety of exotic animals, most identified by their names in Greek. In the lower half, the water spreads out widely to suggest the NIle at the time of its annual flood, celebrated in Egypt with great festivities. Islands above the surface of the water support various buildings, among them a typical Egyptian temple, its entrance flanked by pylons, and a temple in Greek style, with white-robed priests, obelisks, and a round well probably meant for a Nilometer… the water between is full of boats: the small curved boats of the peasants made of bundles of papyrus, and larger merchant-ships, while a hunting party in a more luxurious vessel attacks a group of crocodiles and hippopotamus… Finally two scenes at the bottom show an open-air drinking party beside the water under a pergola [projecting roof or arbor], suggesting the luxurious life of the Delta, and a temple in its enclosure among trees. In front of the temple, under an awning, a group of soldiers assembles, while to one side a procession of priests approaches through a kiosk, carrying a sacred object (Dunbabin 1999: 50).

Detail of the top center of the Barberini mosaic: Pygmies fighting cranes, and two fantastic animals (including the nabous, a word, transcribed by Pliny and translated as the Ethiopian term for giraffe, otherwise known only to this mosaic.)

Detail of the bottom left of the Barberini mosaic, depicting a drinking party next to the waters of the Nile in the Delta, under a pergola, a projecting roof or arbor.

The mosaic depicts a different form of Nilometer than the one I showed you in Wednesday’s lecture: this one, being round, resembles other Nilometers that have been discovered archaeologically.

Detail of the round well probably meant for a Nilometer in the scenes from Lower Egypt in the Barberini mosaic.

Excavated round Nilometer, dating to the New Kingdom.

If you want to read up more on the Barberini/Nile Mosaic, I’d start here:

If you have access to artstor.org (which you should, through the Rockefeller Library), you can find good detail images of the mosaic.

NOTA BENE: If you want to pursue the notion of Egypt as a watery place, I encourage you to check out the recent article “Searching for the Venice of the Nile” from the New Scientist, which describes archaeologist Angus Graham and the Egypt Exploration Society of London’s recent attempts to uncover whether the Karnak temple complex was really on an island in the middle of the Nile, instead of situated on the riverbank as previously assumed. They are asking questions such as “If the waterways existed, did they operate all year round or just during flood season? Were they also used to transport supplies, including the immense stones used to build the temples?” to make sense of the landscape as a whole, including both sides of the Nile and the relationship with the ancient capital at Thebes.

3 comments on “scenes of the Nile in Italy”

I find it amazing how different the modern conception of Egypt is to its image in antiquity. When people think about Egypt today, what first comes to mind is an arid land dotted with pyramids. We think of the Nile, but just as a single river that goes through the middle of it; we don’t think of lush vegetation or any wet environment. The image is always tan, sandy, and very very dry. However, in antiquity, the image of Egypt was almost completely opposite, a land rich in vegetation and flowing water, as portrayed in their art. The mosaics we saw in class all had water and water imagery at their forefront; it was not just water itself, but also its interaction with the community, with boats, fishing, and game hunting of aquatic birds. One of the mosaics was, apparently, even built so that water would seep through, wetting the entire image, and enhancing the perception of this water environment.
It was not just through art that this conception of a “wet Egypt.” It is also seen in their vernacular. In ancient Greek, the word for Egypt in the masculine denotes just the river; it is only the word for Egypt in the feminine denotes the entire fertile land, highlighting their emphasis on Egypt as a water environment.
So then, my question is, when did that change? Why do we think of Egypt as being only arid and practically lifeless, where antiquity thought of it as lush and full of vegetation. There is no emphasis on the engineering feat of the pyramids or mummies or sarcophagi, or really anything that modern day associates with ancient Egypt. They see it as an oasis. Why don’t we?

I believe that Herodotus best summed up Egypt when he famously said, “Egypt is the gift of the Nile.” He quite literally meant that Egypt and everything in it is possible because of the Nile River and its annual flood. I took an Egyptian history course last semester and what never ceased to surprise me was how much in Egypt as an empire and a culture was able to accomplish depending on just the Nile. Egyptian kingship in a nutshell is based on the pharaoh ensuring and taking responsibility for the annual flood which produced the water and rich silt that the facilitated the agriculture in the valley.
I think Hadley, the short answer to your question is that the ancients saw Egypt as the “Land of the Nile” and literally meant the Nile river valley and the Nile delta. The large rectangle of desert that we now associate with Egypt would mean nothing to the Ancient Egyptians. I think that our conception of Egypt is a product of our modern concept of geopolitical borders as defined by lines in the sand, and that the ancient conception of Egypt was a product of their identification of their empire with a single body of water and the landscape immediately surrounding it.

Our modern conceptions regarding the landscape of historical Egypt are certainly distorted by our current geopolitical viewpoint. That is to say, we far to often attempt to apply our current conceptions on the role of water in our daily life to our understanding of Egypt. In many ways, this mosaic highlights the vital importance of water that is quite often ignored in modern discussions.
To start, examine the composition of the image, and see how water is the dominant force within all sectors of the mosaic. Indeed, it quite literally touches everything. It sates the thirst of both animals and men alike, it permits nautical transportation, it shapes the very topography of the landscape in which the egyptians inhabit. Through this display, this image is a tribute of sorts. It demonstrates the shaping power of the Nile, and the life-giving importance of Earth’s most abundant resource.
Hadley, you question why our modern understanding of Egypt differs from the highly aquatic culture it was. Why do we think of an arid desert and not the lush landscape depicted here? I believe the answer lies with our greater understanding of the role of water within society. Members of a developed nation can easily choose to ignore the importance of water, for it has now been relegated to the role of a commercialized product, with its significance for trade and economy hidden behind the scenes. It is for this reason that our visualization is flawed; we do not have the proper contextual understanding of water to see the historic role it played in shaping countries and landscapes.